‘I think we’ve come too far,’ he told Chemor. ‘I feel we’ve veered too far from the rock face.’
‘You stay with the ladies, tuan, I’ll go back to see.’ Chemor immediately began to retrace their steps along the path he had cut. George too wandered back some paces, then a low birdlike whistle made him go more urgently after his man.
Listening, the two women could hear more jungle being cleared and with tacit agreement both rose and went towards the sound.
Chemor was chopping into the side of their original path. He stopped as they reached the two men. ‘You smell something here, tuan?’ he asked.
They all sniffed the air. George pushed his head into the new way. ‘Perhaps ... oil? Or … ’
‘Rust,’ Chemor said. ‘I think jeep this way.’
It took ten minutes and the vehicle lay within some five yards of the path he had first cut.
‘Be careful, look around.’ The anxiety in George’s voice matched a sudden concern in Liz’s mind as the machete, willingly wielded, swung high and to ground level.
‘Let me,’ George said, taking the machete. ‘Stay well clear, it might move as we cut closer.’
He worked a little more slowly, with more regard to what might be lying around, then reported, ‘I don’t think it’ll move. It’s wedged between rocks like something stuck fast in a pair of scissors.’
They watched with terrible fascination as George worked his way near enough to climb on to a wheel and peer into the vehicle. ‘I can’t see anyone — and I would have thought I could here.’ He glanced up to the canopy, which was thinner here, the plants merely reaching across, for the rocks below gave no purchase for roots. He leaned back, pulling at the closed door. It gave and he had to reclose it hastily to keep his balance. He climbed down and reached the handle again, letting the door fall open.
Liz’s hand flew to her mouth. Blanche got slowly to her feet as Harfield climbed back on to the wheel and half got inside the vehicle.
‘There’s no one in here,’ he reported.
‘Thank God!’ Blanche breathed.
Chemor, who was by his side, concluded, ‘No one in it when it fell.’
‘No ... ’ George was right inside the vehicle now, peering and running his hand over surfaces, looking at the damage. ‘I agree with you.’
‘So you think it was pushed over?’ Liz asked.
‘Not pushed — look at this, Chemor.’ The two men partly disappeared into the bowels of the nose-dived car, then reappeared with a length of rope. ‘The engine was set running and the jeep kept on course for the edge by tying a rope around the seat stays and the bottom of the steering wheel. Whoever sent it over was probably quite unlucky it didn’t burst into flames.’
Liz, glancing at her mother, saw the bleakness. ‘But do we know it’s my father’s?’
‘I’m afraid we do,’ George answered. ‘Between the rocks at the other side is part of the front number plate — enough to be sure.’
George and Chemor scoured all around the vehicle, but found nothing else. ‘No one has been to or from since it fell,’ Chemor was confident.
‘So his jeep was deliberately hidden ... ’ Blanche addressed herself to George.
‘We must tell the police.’
‘And assume that Neville was … ’
‘Kidnapped — otherwise … ’
‘Where is his body?’ Blanche added the words George was reluctant to say, then asked, ‘Will the police fingerprint the jeep?’
‘Two weeks in the jungle, already red with rust — the only prints would be inside. Chemor said he will have another look round at the top of the falls. He may learn something more.’
Liz immediately stood, ready to move off; Blanche rose only as George offered his hand to pull her up.
It was hardly with any feeling of success that they climbed back up into the light. One mystery solved, another deepened. ‘The jungle keeps it secrets,’ Anna had told Liz when Wendy had been born and, feeling neglected, the elder sister had packed doll, drawing book and crayons to leave home. And it will keep you if you run away.’
At the top of the escarpment they rested while Chemor looked around the area. Another time Liz would have pulled off her shoes and socks and dangled her feet in the running water, but it was not the time to take comforts.
Chemor beckoned from some fifty yards away where the jungle grew down to the first rocky step of the falls. ‘Here, see,’ he said, pointing to the ground, ‘tiger tracks. He drinks here — ’ his fingers traced a line from trees over the rocks to where a natural hollow in the rock made a deep pool — ‘but more.’ He moved a few more paces and stooped to show them a tunnel through the undergrowth. ‘Way tiger comes, and man goes — once, anyway.’ He stood up to show where twigs had been broken above the height of the tiger’s back. ‘Man pushed through some two, three weeks ago.’ Delicately between his finger and thumb he held a twig that had been broken off and displayed where two new young growths sprang from it. He found others the same.
‘You think whoever sent the jeep over left this way?’ George said.
‘Someone did, tuan.’
George nodded.
‘You want me to follow man’s trail, see if he went to jungle or plantation?’ Chemor asked, demonstrating the two directions the track could take — straight on or curving back towards Rinsey.
‘I don’t want you eaten by a tiger or murdered by communists,’ George told him.
Chemor shook his head. ‘No one here now, and tiger he no bother, he well eaten, big heavy tracks.’ He pointed down to a recent spoor and swayed his body, holding his hands some distance from his stomach and grinning. ‘He very full.’
George nodded agreement but added, ‘Don’t go far. I don’t want to lose any more men.’
‘Quite safe.’ Chemor turned and stooped into the tunnel.
George and Blanche turned to make their way back through the plantation. Liz waited until they were some dozen paces away and called after them, ‘I’m going with Chemor, I have to see where this man went.’
She heard their protests as she too ducked into the run, like Alice down the rabbit hole, she thought. Indeed, hurrying to catch up Chemor she was reminded of the rabbit runs she had seen through the English hedgerows. This run was just a larger version, she told herself, and provided you could stoop low enough it was a much easier way of travelling then hacking a way through the jungle.
Chemor heard her coming and waited. ‘Tuan know you come?’ he asked. When she nodded he looked doubtful but moved on. They had not gone far when he stopped. She was both awed and fascinated by the way he crouched quite still, every sense so alert she was reminded of a sea anemone, tentacles drifting, trawling for sensations.
She realised as he slowly looked around that he was motionless because he did not want to destroy any shred of evidence either beneath his feet or by pushing through the undergrowth. Unexpectedly he put out a hand to the wall of the run, gave a low grunt of satisfaction and beckoned Liz off at a tangent through the jungle again.
He used his machete a few times but Liz could see it was merely to give her better passage. In minutes they were in the lesser jungle, the beluka. Suddenly her mouth dropped open in surprise. They were at the rear of Rinsey. She could see ahead the old buildings at the back and the young guardsman coming out of one of them.
So whoever had caused her father’s jeep to go over the escarpment had come back to Rinsey. She folded her arms over her stomach and rocked with anguish.
Under questioning from Sturgess, Josef had only belatedly remembered his employer had driven down to Singapore, but had been unsure what day he had left. Josef had said he was living at the manager’s bungalow. So much pointed to the duplicity of Josef. It was like finding one’s brother was a thief or a murderer ... She felt the prickly chill of icy perspiration on her forehead.
Alan Cresswell turned and smiled as he saw her. She thought he looked as if he suddenly decided to come to meet them, but was not sure. In the tide of blackness that was rushing over her, she felt her limbs, her life, drift like some hapless thing unanchored from all it knew. Then someone caught and lifted her as she sank into insensibility.